


Personal Devotions

by poodlepaws (Nausicaa_E)



Category: The Silt Verses (Podcast)
Genre: God/Worshipper Relationships, I Am Working Through Some Feelings About Faith Through A Very Good Podcast, Other, Piercings, Religion Kink, Sex Toys Under Clothing, Sibling Reeve is the Peninsular equivalent of a neopagan, Worship, and also for having to keep your faith secret, and very horny about it, anyway congratulations to jon and muna, but more about the aftermath than the getting pierced, enjoy deified whole foods, the fish-hook is a metaphor for a buttplug, what's the point of a god you can't fuck, why is that not a specific tag already, you've made it as horror authors. somebody wants to fuck your terrible god
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:29:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29670069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nausicaa_E/pseuds/poodlepaws
Summary: Sibling Reeve makes a grocery trip more exciting.
Relationships: Original Non-Binary Character/The Trawler-Man
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	Personal Devotions

There is a votive fish-hook buried in my thigh, underneath the pink jeans and the veneer of urban professionality.

I can feel the cold metal against and inside my skin, its shape tracing out a prayer-mark of its own next to my leg.

I can feel the occasional slow drop of blood travel down my leg before sticking to my jeans, the sting of pain as my body screams to remove the invader.

I can feel the breath drawn out from me, like something wriggling on the end of a reel, every time I sit down or stand up.

I can feel my god stretching me open, drawing forth the agony which I offer Him freely, and I know with every step that I am loved.

_These are my personal devotions to the Trawler-Man, and I name His disciple thus, in order of their arrival._

_Mouse Poodlepaws,_ _as Reeve._

I am shopping at the hazy and luxurious store-temple of Magna Krater, a faux-rustic goddess invented to make yuppies feel some sort of connection to the land that is nonetheless farmed by the devotees of Old Jolly Crunchtooth. Magna Krater’s welcoming arms offer gourmet instant meals and wholesome bulk goods and fertility treatments for burgeoning young families, and her temples smell of olive oil and wine and artisanal breads.

I could tell you a half-dozen terrible true faces for Magna Krater, and of my complicity that grants me such an excellent loyalty discount that makes shopping in such a pleasant atmosphere viable, and maybe I will, someday, but today, I am focused on the terrible true face of my own god, with His two mouths that whisper into each of my ears as I step through the store-temple with His hook inside me.

Each step makes my leg flex and bend, the muscle squeezing tightly around the hook. The feeling of solidity inside me, of something being where it should not be, sends shivers up my leg, and forces me to walk slowly lest I rip it out. Each step is taken with thighs pressed tightly together, partially to conceal the tell-tale shape from any prying eyes, partly to feel its reassuring curve against my other thigh. I rock my hips from side to side, trying to stave off pain I know will not be helped, but at least the friction grants me something pleasant to focus on.

I would not begrudge any eyes for prying. I am too drunk on the Trawler-Man’s attention, defined in that smooth curve of metal inside my leg, to feel anything but desirable, wanted … a lure, a piece of bait on a hook. _Follow me,_ I think to the slim young person in green and white, _search me, find me out, see me, shivering happily from the pain, performing a sacrament to an illegal god in the middle of a grocery store. Know what my Trawler-Man can give you. Know what He can make you do. Let me see myself through outside eyes, pretty fish._

I bend over to examine a display of plums and the barb _catches_ in my thigh, tearing another little line of warmth down there in the dark, and I grip the edge of the display to steady myself, keep from moaning. My body protests – _Sit down! Don’t move! Get it out!_ – and I force air into my lungs to keep it calm as I bag plums, weak-kneed. I can do nothing to control the flush in my cheeks, the glitter in my eyes.

Nobody notices, and I advance, filling my cart, step by slow step, warmth in my thigh and in my face. It is a path where hurrying means hurting more than is bearable, means revealing myself, means the possibility of the hook tearing through me and clattering bloody to the tile. My slowness benefits me, as it takes great effort to remember to check my shopping list, tearing my focus away from the enormity of my secret, from the overwhelming rush of my Trawler-Man’s presence so tangibly close to me.

I approach the butcher’s counter and ask for a pound of the carne asada, speaking slowly, softly; I fear if I speak too loud my voice will pitch and break and whine. The butcher tries to chat with me, and I struggle to make up some pleasantry about how my day is going, something that does not expose me, no matter how much my inner voice wants to tell everyone, to make a spectacle of myself.

The Trawler-Man requires my safety, you see. When I die, it will be the river that takes me, as He plans; His hooks are in me (more literally now than ever), and I cannot throw myself away, no matter how great the brief swell of wonderful terror would be. He knows what it is like to be two-mouthed; He lends me words to keep my secret safe. As much as the words feel mine, I do not feel in control of what I do, and I revel in it.

I place the meat in my cart and step away, slowly, wondering what the butcher would look like hung up on a hook in a meat locker, wondering if she would know the same joy I know.

It is by the Trawler-Man’s grace that I do not lose the sensation of the hook in my thigh to my own body warmth. It stays with me, cold and curved, through the cereal aisle, through home goods, through to frozen meals. It is by His grace that I can endure it, the warmth that drains from my thigh, the clenching of my muscles, the weakness in my leg. It is by my own faith that that pain is transmuted into pleasure, that I feel it not as a wound but as the favor of a god of life-giving silt and drowning water, that I sample the joy of that divine paradox myself.

My awareness of myself is localized in the hook in my leg, in the grip of my hands on the cart, in the brightness of my face. My breath comes shallow and languid as the estuary of the White Gull by which the city sits, as I push on through dairy.

And then a step comes in baked goods which sends the hook juddering through my flesh, and I cry out, and grip the cart, openly wincing. I can feel the gazes of those around me, near and far; I turn to a pleasant-looking middle-aged woman and give a sheepish smile, reaching forward to rattle a bottle of painkillers in my cart. “That time of the month,” I groan, “cramps caught up to me.” I feel prying ears draw back, but I can tell for certain that there are some who will wonder why my cry was not altogether of pain, why it sounded more like a moan of delight, and I hope they want answers.

It is a relief to check out, even as I must once again make small talk with the cashier, pretend that my voice is naturally this quiet and breathy, pretend that I am simply a rosy-cheeked and bright-eyed sort of person. It is agony to go back to the rough asphalt of the parking lot, feeling the shopping cart judder and my body rattle with it; I cannot bear the pleasure of it. I strain myself around the hook in my thigh as I lift groceries into the car, and once the cart is put away and all is secured I climb into the driver’s seat.

When I sit down, the hook moves, and I move around it, and then the damp spots on my jeans are joined by a dampness in my underwear and I shove my hand into my mouth so I do not scream as I drown in holy ecstasy.

I start the car with a dazed smile. His is the Mouth Devouring, and His is the Mouth Returning.

I do, after all, still have to get home and take it out.


End file.
